Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Navajos in Palestine 'NO to Apartheid!'

Lyla June Johnston and Orlando Begay

Navajos say 'NO!' to Strangulation by Apartheid in PalestineMassacres and Displacement of Palestinians by Israel Repeats Genocide of Native Americans in the United StatesBy Lyla June Johnston in PalestineCensored NewsFrench translation by Christine Prat

Watch video below -- Lyla in Palestine stands before a home demolished by Israel. She describes Israel's goal of "maximum territory" and "minimum population" of Palestinians, who are removed by force, beaten and often hospitalized as Israel destroys Palestinian homes and forces them into refugee camps.

"A Palestinian city strangled by apartheid wall construction. Over 2500 people were forced to move their livelihoods to refugee/concentration camps. Because of the wall construction, kids had to get up at 4 am just to get around the wall to their school. If someone has a heart attack they would have to take over an hour to get to the hospital. They were isolated out of existence and now it is a huge ghost city in ancestral Palestine." -- Lyla June Johnston

"These are the windows of a school for Palestinian girls that were broken with rubber bullets and tear gas bombs by the Israeli army. This is in the refugee camp called Shu'fat camp. It is across the street from Jewish settlements where people not only don’t have to pay taxes but receive benefits to live there. Here in Shu’fat people are taxed and resources are extracted. No services are provided and so there is no way to push out the trash which gathers on the side of streets or is burned." -- Lyla June Johnston

"Today I am visiting the ancient city of Lifta. It was 'depopulated' in 1947 by Zionist Militias. And by this I mean the people were driven out by force. Around this time 120 men women and children were massacred.

The whole area has remnants of indigenous land stewardship: almond trees, fig trees, rich soil, greenery all around, a sacred spring. We are now on our way to the refugee camp 20 minutes away where the displaced people live to this day. Sound familiar? For native Americans, it sure does... It is time for us as Americans to raise our voices and pressure the American government to cease the veto-ing process at the UN. The veto power used by the US prevents international law and treaties from protecting Palestinians.

No matter what your religion is or what your sacred texts say, myself and many progressive Jews understand that nothing justifies us to kill others or behave in a dominator mindset or violently displace a person who has lived there for hundreds if not thousands of years. — in Lifta, Yerushalayim, Israel." -- Lyla June Johnston

Watch Lyla's video below

The Massacre of LIfta

.

"Whenever you see these cactus trees, you know it was a “depopulated” Palestinian village. Although not indigenous to Palestine, they were a favorite plant species of Palestinian communities as they served many purposes. Thus the cactus has become a symbol of #AlNakba, or “The Catastrophe,” of 1947 when Zionist militias drove out 700,000 Palestinian people by force, massacring hundreds and hundreds along the way. A second removal occurred in 1967 during the Six Day War and they were forced to leave everything they knew once again. Today, people are routinely imprisoned, killed and every movement they make is controlled and monitored by cameras and checkpoints hidden as much as possible from the affluent Israeli community right next door. Grandmothers have watched three generations of children be war torn and wonder when it will stop. The answer to the question depends on each of us."-- Lyla June Johnston #BoycottSanctionDivest

"What if every time you simply wanted to get back home from work you had to go through a checkpoint full of armed guards that may or may not harass you? This is what Palestinians go through. What if at the age of 18 you were forced to join the Israeli Army and check people you don’t even know who just want to get home at night? This is what Jewish Israeli youth go through. In the context of oppression, nobody wins and all are held in the bondage of untruth." -- Lyla June Johnston

Photos and article copyright Lyla June JohnstonMay not be used without permission

2 comments:

DINEH! Despite the Dineh Rez's own internal modern racism, neo-activism vs. old traditional resistance, Dineh early historical experience has been like Palestine: treated as out-cast, ancestral status being denied and attempted to be erased, under attack not only by Spain and U.S., but by 5 - 6 tribes. Most of the time all at once. Thus what has happened at Big Mountain is defeat, irreplaceable culture. Long Live Palestine!

What you are seeing in the Middle East is a battle of religions with all claiming to be descendants of Abraham. It is a family feud because they have the same DNA. The image of the Jews praying at the Wailing Wall near the Temple Mount which was the site of the ancient Jewish temples but now occupied by the Dome of the Rock/Al-Aqsa mosque.

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